(JTA) — The 11-year-old Ohio girl killed when a tree fell on a cabin at a Jewish camp in Indiana has been identified.
Jadyn Larky of Bexley, a Columbus suburb, was the victim of the accident at Camp Livingston in Bennington, according to an email sent by the city’s mayor, Ben Kessler, to its employees, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
A healthy tree was struck by lightning early Tuesday morning during a severe storm and fell on a cabin where campers were sleeping, the camp said in a statement. The camper was seriously injured and died of her injuries after emergency services arrived. No other campers or staff were injured. according to the statement.
Grief counselors from Cincinnati arrived at the camp hours later to assist campers and staff in dealing with the news, according to camp officials. Every child at camp was scheduled to call home on Tuesday.
The Columbus Dispatch identified Jadyn as the daughter of Dr. Howard Larky and Liza Yarov Larky. She was a student at Cassingham Elementary School in Bexley. According to the Forward, Liza Yarov Larky is a career adviser at The Ohio University Moritz College of Law; Howard Larky is an anesthesiologist.
One of Jadyn’s siblings was at the camp at the time of the accident, WKRC Cincinnati reported.
Jadyn was remembered by a Hebrew school teacher at Congregation Tifereth Israel, a Conservative synagogue in Columbus, as “such a sweet girl, polite and kind,” according to a tribute page created by her family. “She always volunteered to lead ‘Hatikvah’ in Hebrew school, and would jump up and down when I handed her the lollipop for leading,” the teacher wrote.
Formerly affiliated with the Jewish Community Center of Greater Cincinnati, the nonprofit camp serves campers from various Midwestern cities, including Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky.
In 1992, a boy from Ohio, Craig Brill, 15, was killed at the camp when a fire broke out in his cabin. Eight other campers survived.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
